In 1837, Georgia lawmakers authorized a “Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum.” Five years later, the facility opened as the Georgia Lunatic Asylum on the outskirts of the cotton-rich town that served as the antebellum state capital.

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Where Iberian Pig takes its inspiration from all of Spain, Cooks & Soldiers focuses on the Basque region, which gained an international profile during the craze over molecular gastronomy and its first exponent, Ferran Adrià of elBulli.

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Southbound magazine, the newest ancillary title from the publishers of Atlanta magazine, showcases the top travel destinations in the Southeast. We visit idyllic small towns and exciting cities in search of outstanding vacation opportunities.Inside Southbound

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Georgia offers diverse places to see and things to do, from the mountains in North Georgia to the coasts of Savannah and The Golden Isles. Take a tour in your own backyard and visit all that our great state has to offer. Begin your tour

Dining in has its advantages: You can wear what you want, eat when you want, and drink as much as you like. To craft the perfect dinner party but skip dirtying the kitchen, look to these seven purveyors for the best meat, cheese, pasta, wine, and dessert.

Hashtag of the Year: Atlanta History Center’s #wouldagrammed

Plus: Erick Erickson, James E. Carter IV, and three reasons to go behind the AJC paywall

20/20 Hindsight: The History Center’s #wouldagrammed
If smartphones existed back in the day, would W.T. Sherman have posted a shot of the ATL in flames? Would patrons of Jacobs’s Pharmacy have snapped their fountain glasses frothing with a new beverage called Coca-Cola? You bet. The next best thing is the retroscripting by the Atlanta History Center’s savvy social media team, which posts images from the center’s archive on Instagram with ideal zeitgeisty timing: a shot of 1892 trolley construction on Edgewood Avenue just as 2013 streetcar track installation on the same street marks a milestone, for instance. But most captivating are everyday glimpses of the city’s past, like dapper 1881 shoppers at a Whitehall Street hat emporium or 1940s passengers dismayed by a wailing infant in the airport terminal.

How the other half Tweets
Want to avoid a social media echo chamber? Lefties: Follow WSB and Fox News personality Erick Erickson. The RedState.com editor in chief leavens right-wing talking points with tweets on suburban fatherhood, making any vitriol go down easy. For those on the right, we endorse James Earl Carter IV, grandson of Jimmy, wrangler of that “47 percent” video, and Atlanta-based political researcher with lightning-fast wit.

Worth the paywall
We’re still gobsmacked by the AJC’s decision to launch a second website rather than beef up its first. But here are three reasons to pay for myAJC.com: Katie Leslie, Greg Bluestein, and Aaron Gould Sheinin. This trio put in the shoe-leather reporting that click-bait aggregation will never replace.

Siri, phone home
So your iPhone “assistant” Siri is voiced by Susan Bennett, an actress who lives in Sandy Springs? “Yes, I worry about how many times I get cursed every day,” she told CNN. Bennett herself never cusses Siri: “Bad karma.”